Not Jay Smith? According to the foot note: (Copyright © 1999 by Peter Saunders based on other content from
Jay Smith. Originally posted at Debate.org.uk. Used with permission.)
I have already shown it existed First Century A.D.
No evidence is offered only theories. It's a shame Jay doesn't study more:
Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science
Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science
THE ORIENTATION OF THE FIRST MOSQUES
The Prophet Muhammad had said when he was in Medina: ‘What is between east and west is a qibla’, and he himself had prayed due south to Mecca. In emulation of the Prophet, and interpreting his remark as implying that the qibla was due south everywhere, certain Muslims used south for the qibla wherever they were. When mosques were erected from Andalusia to Central Asia by the first generation of Muslims known as the Companions of the Prophet (sahaba), some of these were built facing south even though this was scarcely appropriate in places far to the east or west of the meridian of Mecca. Certain early mosques from Andalusia to Central Asia bear witness to this. One may compare this situation with the eastern orientation of churches and synagogues.
The first mosque to be built in Egypt was built facing winter sunrise, and it was this direction which remained the most popular throughout the medieval period amongst the religious authorities. Likewise some of the earliest mosques in Iraq were built facing winter sunset. These orientations were chosen so that the mosques would be ‘facing’ specific walls of the Ka’ba (Figure 4.2). Throughout the medieval period, winter sunrise and sunset were favoured in Egypt and Iraq respectively as the qiblat al-sahaba.
FINDING THE QIBLA BY NON-MATHEMATICAL METHODS
Simple practical means for finding the qibla by the sun, moon and stars, and even by the wins, are outlined in a wide variety of medieval texts. The methods advocated in these sources are adapted from the notions under lying the folk-scientific tradition which was widely disseminated in the Muslim world throughout the medieval period. This popular tradition of astronomy and meteorology was ultimately derived from pre-Islamic Arabia, but had been embellished by the indigenous as well as the Hellenistic traditions of folk science which had been practised in the areas overrun by the Muslims in the seventh century. It was quite distinct from the scientific tradition of the Muslim astronomers, but was far more widely known and practised.
Documented for the first time in the early centuries of the Islamic era, this astronomical lore was eventually applied on a popular level to be practical problems of organising the agricultural calendar, regulating the lunar calendar and the religious festivals, reckoning the time of day by shadow lengths and the time of night by the positions of the lunar mansions and, what concerns us here, finding the direction of the qibla by non-mathematical means. Aspects of this scientific folklore are practised in agricultural communities in the Near East to this day.
Unlike the ‘astronomy of the ancients’, the popular scientific tradition relied solely upon observation of natural phenomena such as the sun, moon, stars and winds. As the Qur’an states that these celestial bodies and natural phenomena were created by God, and specifically that men should be guided by the stars, folk astronomy, unlike mathematical astronomy and astrology, was not criticised by legal scholars.
Jay uses the work of amateur christian evangelical Researcher Dan Gibson recent book Qur'anic Geography, which lists a number of unfounded controversial theories.
I wonder when Dan Gibson was ever allowed into Mecca to carry out his archaeological dig or is he simply relying on a google maps app on his iphone?